Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Emerging Church Conversation

There's a great discussion taking place in blogland between Dan Kimball and Phil Johnson about the Emerging Church.

To be fair, I've not read every one of the books that have come out written by those labeled emerging/emergent church leaders, but the ones I have, I've enjoyed, appreciated, and thought long and hard about.

One of my favorite passages Acts 17:11 where the Berean's were seen as noble, because they didn't just blindly accept teaching, they discussed and checked out to see what was true or not to the best of their ability. So God honors that we discuss and debate things and check out things and I hope we aren't afraid to explore or re-explore doctrine as we grow and develop as followers of Jesus, our whole lives.

Frankly, the message that comes across in that chapter is that he really doesn't want to be bothered with doctrine. Like a lot of postmodern church members, he doesn't seem to have the stomach for propositional theology. I have a hard time interpreting what he says in any other sense.

I appreciate the humility of Johnson's clarification in a more recent post.

I pulled only a couple of quotes I've found intesting, but they are really a poor representation of the discussion. Follow the links, provided above and read the blog-versation for yourself and see what you think.

1 comment:

BrianD
said...

Bryon, you're welcome. I'm glad someone enjoyed the link :)

I'm hoping to start a discussion on the Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches book sometime this week. The Pyromaniacs, Dan Kimball and Bob Hyatt threads I linked to all touch on that book. Hopefully, if you have some time, you'll be able to check it out.